In an interview with iF magazine, Matt Groening revealed that the title of the first direct to DVD Futurama movie will be “Bender’s Big Score”. It will be released in December of 2007, and the movies (four total) will be “reconfigured” into episodes and shown on Comedy Central starting in 2008.

MATT GROENING: We’re doing four DVD movies around ninety minutes and then we’re going to reconfigure those and they’ll be episodes on Comedy Central. The impolite way of saying it is we’re chopping them up and the polite way is to say we’re reconfiguring and we’re going to add narration and more stuff. We’re going to be doing some fun extras on the DVD show, there’s going to be “Everybody Loves Hyptno-Toad” – a whole show of it. The DVD’s are going to be self-contained packages, but the episodes will also work, we hope. That’s the goal.

Read the rest of the interview.

This isn’t quite new news. We’ve known for a while that more Futurama is coming, and now we know the format. Rotten Tomatoes reports that Fox will be producing four straight to DVD movies. Then afterwards Comedy Central will be breaking up these movies into episodes and airing them.

“I was frustrated when it got cancelled, but Fox, 20th Television is the one who came back and said, ‘Would you like to do a DVD movie?’” Groening recalled. We said, ‘Let’s do two’ and they said, ‘Well, why not three?’ and we said, ‘Well, why not four?’ and they said, ‘Okay, four’ and then that’s it.”

The article also mentions that because the movies/episodes will be shown on DVD and Comedy Central (not Fox), they can be a little more extreme and push the limits a bit. Cable stations don’t have to be as strict about content as network stations. I can’t wait!

All glory to the Hypnotoad!

Futurama is an awesome show. Unfortunately, it was cancelled by Fox prematurely. However, just as Family Guy was brought back recently, Futurama is going to get a second chance. The writing for a new season is in progress, and animation is starting. The only bad news is that it won’t air until 2008… it seems so far away.

This news was reported in a recent interview with David X. Cohen, co-creator of the show.

How long after the last “series finale” does the new season take place? And what can we expect for the Fry and Leela relationship?

COHEN: When our story resumes, two long years have passed. As for the Fry/Leela relationship, we will be visiting that subject right away, so I refuse to tell you where it will lead on the grounds that I want you to buy the DVD.

Read the rest of the interview for more details.

In other news, the game developer Multiverse Network recently announced that it obtained the rights to turn the wonderful sci-fi/western show by Joss Whedon, Firefly, into an MMO. Firefly has some incredible writing, believable characters, and interesting plotlines. Serenity, the movie created after the first and only season of the show, was quite well done, essentially an extended episode of Firefly with better effects. However, I can’t help but to be skeptical about a Firefly MMO. It was the characters and their stories that made the show interesting, not as much the setting. I think a game would have a difficult time reproducing this appeal. Being a fan though, I will definitely be watching for future development news about the game to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Another TV show that is also being developed as an MMO is Stargate Worlds, based on the sci-fi shows Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis (which were in turn based on the Stargate movie). Stargate-SG1 has been another great show, although it lost a little of its magic when a couple of main characters left the show, most notably Jack O’Neill, played by Richard Dean Anderson (”MacGyver”). Now, in its tenth season, the show is being cancelled as of the end of the season. Stargate Atlantis, a fairly good spinoff, will continue to go on. Stargate Worlds sounds like it has a lot of potential. Stargate has an incredible universe set up, with many settings (planets, ships, home bases) and original and interesting races. The Stargate universe sounds like a great basis for a game, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens with it. As with any game, however, the enjoyment and success of a game depends upon its gameplay. Creating an enjoyable MMO is easier said than done, but I would love to see this game succeed.